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CoBRA is a participatory assessment methodology, largely qualitative, which identifies the locally-specific factors contributing to the resilience of households and communities facing different types of shocks and stresses. CoBRA aims to understand resilience from community and household perspectives. This tool does not use any preconceived components of resilience, but rather helps local populations describe and explain them on their own, based on their past experience, by:

The GEF Small Grants Programme (GEF SGP) supported 265 communities and civil society organizations in 83 countries to avoid or reduce 167,199 tons of waste from entering waterbodies and supported the sustainable management of 164,169 hectares of marine and coastal areas and fishing grounds, and 264,822 hectares of river and lake basins through community interventions.

Communities in and around the Lake Victoria Basin experience a number of interconnected challenges, including dependence on diminishing natural resources, persistent poverty, food insecurity, poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes and inaccessible health services. At the same time, the ecosystem itself is being overused and destroyed.

This project aims to improve understanding of the importance of wetlands, highlighting the ecological and economic value of Ruvubu National Park through trainings on ecosystem services assessments and identification of biodiversity and ecosystem services characteristics and spatial trends.

The East African Rift System defines the setting of most of Kenya's important internal (e.g., Lakes Nakuru, Naivasha, Baringo, Bogoria) and transboundary (e.g., Lakes Turkana, Victoria) lake basins. The lakes support ecosystems that are rich in birdlife, wildlife and aquatic macrophyte species, but the influent rivers have low species diversity. The lakes and rivers are valuable to the area inhabitants as they provide water and food for humans and livestock, food and nutrition from fisheries, materials for building and weaving, tourism and recreational services, and have aesthetic values.

The UNDP-UNEP Poverty Environment Initiative worked with the Government of Malawi to create revised policies for fisheries and forestry in order to produce better management of resources and encourage sustainable livelihoods. The project encouraged the government to engage stakeholders from various community groups in drafting the policies, which allowed local community leaders to provide a voice and offer their unique insights on how the policies should be shaped.